(CNN) – As Obama prepares to work with the new Republican majority in the U.S. House this January, a new CNN Poll of Polls indicates that the public is split over his handling of duties in the White House.

Overall, 47 percent of Americans approve of how Obama is handling his job and 48 percent disapprove, according to the Poll of Polls which was compiled and released on Friday.
Obama's standing with the public is likely to affect his ability to win the coming battles with the GOP leaders on Capitol Hill once they take control of the U.S. House next January. Even before then, the president is facing a crop of issues to settle with the lame duck Congress including the START treaty with Russia, a potential measure to repeal the Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy which prevents gays from openly serving in the military, and the contentious question of whether to extend Bush tax cuts.

The presidential approval question asks respondents how they feel about how Barack Obama is handling his job. It is used to measure the country's opinion on the president's performance as head of the nation.

The newest CNN Poll of Polls is an average of the four national polls that include interviews conducted this week: Gallup tracking (November 11-16), NBC/Wall Street Journal (November 11-15), Quinnipiac (November 8-15) and CNN/Opinion Research (November 11-14). The Poll of Polls does not have a sampling error.

Three of those surveys also released results on Obama just before the midterm election, and in all three, the president's approval rating is now higher. Obama's approval rating is up four points in the Gallup tracking poll and two points in the NBC/Wall Street Journal and CNN/Opinion Research polls. The Quinnipiac poll has not released national results since early September. Nonetheless, Obama's disapproval rating remains higher in all three polls, and in the CNN Poll of Polls as well.

Check out CNN's new Polling Center, which provides the most comprehensive polling data of any news organization in the political landscape.
CNN Polling Director Keating Holland contributed to this report.

soundoff(27 Responses)

John

Those aren't the poll ratings of someone who has just taken a shellacking, so the story of the 2010 election must be about the lingering effects of the great recession, not about health care or the rescue of GM or any of the other issues the Republicans say it was about.

November 19, 2010 12:27 pm at 12:27 pm |

Rickster

"More than 45 million Americans, or 20 percent of U.S. adults, had some form of mental illness last year, and 11 million had a serious illness, U.S. government researchers reported on Thursday."
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This statistic accounts for 20 per cent of the 47 per cent who think Obama is doing a good job(although there is no way 47 per cent think he is doing well....everybody knows that he is a national...oops, make that international disgrace).